Balkinization: The Torture Papers

The Torture Papers

Marty Lederman

No, not the indispensable volume compiled a few years back by Karen Greenberg and Josh Dratel.

I'm referring to the more than seven thousand pages of documents still hidden within the Executive branch dealing with the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" practices and "black sites" and renditions programs. (This does not even include the DOD materials.) The documents are described in outline here and here (and in the other documents found here), and they include at least eight OLC final opinions and opinion letters in the period between September 2004 and February 2007 alone.

Which is to say: We've barely scratched the surface. And unless the next President chooses to permit a public accounting (quite doubtful, I suspect, since most of these documents are classified and the CIA will be very reluctant to declassify them), the burden will likely fall on historians many decades from now to reconstruct the full story of how the United States came to bless and implement an elaborate official practice of torture and cruelty. Those historians will have a lot of arduous archival work ahead of them, beginning, perhaps, with these 7000 pages.

Posted 2:02 AM by Marty Lederman [link]

Comments:

"quite doubtful, I suspect, since most of these documents are classified and the CIA will be very reuctant to declassify them)"

Why are the possibilites of a new administration doing anything--from DOJ prosecuting, to at least letting the public know what happened--so consistently described as "doubtful" in this resigned tone? Should they declassify them? I think they pretty obviously should; I would also like to see a report on what happened in readable, accessible form. Should they consider prosecution? I think so; leaving aside whether the "reliance on official" advice test is an absolute bar, there are cases we know about where it doesn't really apply, which DOJ refused to take action on simply because it would have meant embarrassing revealations about official advice. Conceding in advance that there won't be accountability at all doesn't make things easier for people seeking it.

# posted by

Katherine_ : 9:14 AM

Although I agree that the Executive is owed a respectful deference when it comes to the operation of its own affairs; I believe that in the current administration the expansion of secrecy or privilege has made that branch increasing occult to the Congress, and is impairing the latter's own proper functioning.

Systematic concealment of information is probably another harbinger of a constitutional dictatorship in the process of forming.

# posted by

Michael Sweney : 3:05 PM

what we need right now is another daniel ellsberg.

# posted by

selise : 4:09 PM

This is from Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch" at yesterday's WaPo online:

"Yoo Won't Visit

Jan Crawford Greenburg blogs for ABC News: 'Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who wrote the controversial legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation programs, will not testify voluntarily before the House Judiciary Committee -- paving the way for a possible subpoena and showdown over Executive Privilege. Yoo's lawyer has just informed House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers that he would not appear.

'In a letter, Yoo's lawyer told Conyers he was "not authorized" by DOJ to discuss internal deliberations.'"

# posted by

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# posted by

Unknown : 5:01 PM